1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to optics and spectroscopy. More particularly, the present invention relates to diagnosing epithelial neoplasia and other conditions using optimized spectroscopy observable by the human eye.
2. Background
Approximately 1,200,000 people were diagnosed with cancer in 1999 resulting in approximately 563,000 deaths. The majority of these cancers were of epithelial origin. Early detection of pre-invasive epithelial neoplasia has the potential to increase patient survival and improve quality of life. However, many of the currently available screening and detection techniques for epithelial pre-cancers do not provide adequate sensitivity and specificity; furthermore, many screening and detection methods require extensive training to yield adequate clinical results. For example, to discern between premalignant and early malignant lesions from common benign inflammatory in suspected oral cancer cases, practitioners commonly perform visual examinations. However, visual screenings have been reported to have a sensitivity of only 74%, a specificity of 99%, and a negative predicative value of 0.67 and 0.99, respectively. Consequently, practitioners oftlen resort to the invasive and painful option of biopsies to confirm the presence of precancer or even early cancer. Thus, despite the easy accessibility of the oral cavity for examination, current methods do not adequately screen and detect precancers in a non-invasive manner.
There is a need for a non-invasive tool to diagnose epithelial neoplasia, such as oral cancer, skin cancer, and cervical cancer that yields accurate results.